MOTOGP SAN MARINO 2015 - FREE PRACTICE

MOTOGP - FIRST DAY AT MISANO
BAUTISTA IS HARD AT WORK IN THE APRILIA CAMP, FOCUSING ON PACE
BRADL HAS EVEN MORE ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT

Misano Adriatico, 11 September 2015 - It was a day of hard work, especially focusing on comparisons of the different chassis, for Aprilia Racing Team Gresini.

Both Alvaro Bautista, testing radically different solutions, and Stefan Bradl, concentrating on the new frame, worked to find the best solutions for the qualifiers tomorrow and, above all, for the race on Sunday. Both riders improved between FP1 and the afternoon session, Bautista by more than two tenths (19th with a time of 1’34,727) and Bradl by almost a second, finishing 21st with a time of 1’35,036.

ROMANO ALBESIANO (Aprilia Racing Manager)“Today was a really intense day. We tried a lot of different solutions and overall, with Alvaro we are quite confident that we have a good pace, since that is mainly what we were focusing on, and there is still room for further development tomorrow. Stefan, on the other hand, is having a bit more difficulty in this series of tight turns. But in the afternoon he tested the new frame for the first time and it helped. In any case I think we'll be able to help him improve even more in tomorrow's sessions."

FAUSTO GRESINI (Team Manager)“For the moment we're in line with our expectations. We did various tests with both riders with the usual goal of taking a few steps forward. We were successful and I think that tomorrow we'll be able to improve our performance as well as our position. It was a day of profitable work but we need to keep giving 100% for the qualifiers tomorrow.”

ALVARO BAUTISTA

“From the first session we tested two bikes with decidedly different settings and we found a few positive solutions. In the afternoon I continued working on the comparison even using a shorter bike but I wasn't entirely convinced. Maybe it gave me a bit more grip but the bike became twitchier. That's fine for a flying lap but thinking about race distance, even for tomorrow, I'll make different choices.”

STEFAN BRADL

“This afternoon in the second free practice session I tested the new frame for the first time and I immediately found some benefits going into turns. The bike is more precise going in and although there isn't much difference in performance in the turn compared to the frame I've been using until now, that is definitely positive. With this frame the bike needs to be ridden differently because it performs differently, especially in braking, so today I still wasn't taking full advantage of it. I'll need to adapt my riding style a bit, after which we'll be able to improve more. Today we also made some changes to the electronics, moving in the right direction, so now we'll carefully analyse the data in order to be even faster tomorrow."